Hi,
Generally there are 3 main concerns when it comes to USB2 vs Firewire a (lets exclude firwire b since it is an 800 protocol)
a) responsiveness (also known as latency) - how "close" is the device to the signal bus. The less it takes for a signal to be transmitted the better
b) quality - popping, signal loss at higher resolutions and such like
c) consitancy - sustained high transmission are and so on
a) relates manly to hardware and the chipset of the cards involved. People tell me that Texas Instruments has the lead in these chips and a lot of companies use these in their firewaire technologies
b) is mainle the hardware infrastructure both in regards to your USB/Firewire card
c) is all about the software (drivers and the interaction with a) and b))
Mix all these dimensions with what you are trying to do and your answers pop up pretty quickly.
If you want to record 16 parallel tracks at the same (or maybe more from a good drum set-up) time using 192 bit-rate than bandwidth is important. but in most cases you can set-up parallel routes for that (2*USB/FIRWIRE)- there is a crossover point and cost to move from 1* to 2* but you owuld have to be unliky to fall into that gap exactly.
Latency is in my view (please post to disagree) the killer of the thing, and apple with Firewire seem to be ahead of Microsoft and USB2 (and this from someone with Windows XP and Firewore in operation :| )
Sustained rates is the next one, and again Apple & firewire is better - I compared my setup with a mates and it runs much better on Apple.
Good cables, a decent soundcard, a good firewire card / USB card and a bit of sense when setting everything up deals happily with the hiss and pop. One should remember not to share the same PCI bus with any other devices though. If you have other stuff you want to plug into your computer, get another USB/Firewire card.
PCIe is better than PCI.
anyone else?
